3-D Printable Atari 8-bit Cartridge Holder

[toddtmw]

19 minutes ago, Gunstar said:

Like you guys said, to keep an eye on it when I'm not in the office, I guess. I may not need it, as you say, but I'm not always in my office space, except maybe over the winter months like now when my business is slow (mostly landscaping and lawn maintenance with light construction and remodeling sometimes), because it's where my Atari computers are too, so it doubles as my computer-playground. What's the average time for printing, like say, the cartridge holders?

30 minutes to 36 hours.

 

Really.

 

It depends on how fine you print it and how big it is.

 

This is the "dot matrix" era of 3-D printing.

[ivop]

1 hour ago, Gunstar said:

I asked about the enclosure in a couple of posts and that question went unanswered, no biggy, you guys have been extremely helpful. But I intend to set the printer up next to my PC in my home office area so it should be at room temperature all the time.

I also print at room temperature, without an enclosure. Even PETG. And no curling or warping. I heat the bed to 40-50 degrees for the first three layers and then turn the heater of. I print on glass with 3DLAC for bonding. Glass I get from the Action! store. I just get a few photo frames, for less than a dollar a piece, and remove the wooden frame. They are 2mm thick and break every once in a while.

Edited January 8, 2021 by ivop

[Gunstar]

42 minutes ago, toddtmw said:

 

This is the "dot matrix" era of 3-D printing.

Yes, I've said the same thing before myself and a few years ago was going to wait for the tech to reach the "deskjet" printer era and prices drop to about what I just paid for my 3D printer. But I decided that "dot  matrix" quality is o.k. for me, for now, since Uncle Sam is giving out "free" money right now, whether I need it or not, which I'm lucky enough to not need for living expenses. So I'm spending it on hobby toys to do my part in helping the economy. If they end up passing another stimulus package to the American people, I'll invest it in more equipment for my business. I spent the first $1200 on my business.

Edited January 8, 2021 by Gunstar

[+skr]

This one took me 13 hrs. PETG.

[Doug_in_NC]

As I mentioned above, mine is an Ender 3 too. It isn’t as good as the $3000 ones I have access to at work, unsurprisingly, but it does a decent job. Personally I don’t think it needs an enclosure. Mine sits in my garage and works year round. The only thing is that I have to leave the bed to preheat a bit longer in winter, but otherwise no problems. Just don’t leave the filament out for extended period of time if it’s humid (like it is here a lot).

[Doug_in_NC]

OK, I have modified the model to produce ones 3mm wider that will fit my SIDE 2 cartridge, and I hope all of the other cartridges that people have. As before there are 4 files for one with the logo on both sides, on the left, on the right and no logo. If anyone wants any further mods please ask

 

Atari Catridge Stand 2 Wide Right.stlAtari Catridge Stand 2 Wide.stlAtari Catridge Stand 2 Wide Left.stlAtari Catridge Stand 2 Wide Center.stl

[toddtmw]

On 1/8/2021 at 7:43 AM, Mr Robot said:

Side mount spool (stop wearing out your extruder, make the printer more stable)

I installed this on my printer and immediately had issues where the extruder wasn't pulling filament. The gear got clogged with plastic and when I tried to remove it to clean it, the head of one of the set screws was rounded out. I was able to gently pry it off, but didn't want to hammer it back on, so I ordered a new aluminum extruder that came with a new gear. But, I'm not sure that side-mount is less stress on the extruder.

 

Pulling up (ish) from the side seems to take more work than pulling down from above.

 

-Todd

[ivop]

1 minute ago, toddtmw said:

Pulling up (ish) from the side seems to take more work than pulling down from above.

Let gravity do part of the work

 

[Mr Robot]

1 hour ago, toddtmw said:

I installed this on my printer and immediately had issues where the extruder wasn't pulling filament. The gear got clogged with plastic and when I tried to remove it to clean it, the head of one of the set screws was rounded out. I was able to gently pry it off, but didn't want to hammer it back on, so I ordered a new aluminum extruder that came with a new gear. But, I'm not sure that side-mount is less stress on the extruder.

 

Pulling up (ish) from the side seems to take more work than pulling down from above.

 

-Todd

And yet I've been using it for over a year and had no issues at all, you also had problems with a metal extruder and I haven't had any issues there either. I remember when I helped you set up your printer when you first got it you had problems calibrating your esteps. It sounds like your whole extruder part needs recalibrating.

 

As for the gravity thing, I found I got a lot of wear on the extruder where the red triangle is when it feeds from above that I don't get t all when it feeds from the side.

[Gunstar]

Maybe a better answer is a spool somewhere in-between those two positions.

Edited January 11, 2021 by Gunstar

[toddtmw]

29 minutes ago, Mr Robot said:

And yet I've been using it for over a year and had no issues at all, you also had problems with a metal extruder and I haven't had any issues there either. I remember when I helped you set up your printer when you first got it you had problems calibrating your esteps. It sounds like your whole extruder part needs recalibrating.

 

As for the gravity thing, I found I got a lot of wear on the extruder where the red triangle is when it feeds from above that I don't get t all when it feeds from the side.

Yep. I added this to help that:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3052488

[ivop]

48 minutes ago, Gunstar said:

Maybe a better answer is a spool somewhere in-between those two positions.

I once printed this to improve my printer. I suppose this is inbetween

 

 

The size of my printbed is pathetically small

 

BTW this is was a Monoprice select clone. A lot of the printable upgrades (also see the fillament guide in semi-transparent blue PETG) are no longer available on thingiverse. I wonder why?

 

Edit: it has been modded a lot. Only the motors and axis' are original

Edited January 11, 2021 by ivop

[toddtmw]

5 minutes ago, ivop said:

I once printed this to improve my printer. I suppose this is inbetween

 

 

The size of my printbed is pathetically small

 

BTW this is was a Monoprice select clone. A lot of the printable upgrades (also see the fillament guide in semi-transparent blue PETG) are no longer available on thingiverse. I wonder why?

 

Edit: it has been modded a lot. Only the motors and axis' are original

Thingiverse is ... not good. it's better than anything else, but unfortunately, the bar was not very high so...

 

[+skr]

On 1/10/2021 at 8:07 PM, Doug_in_NC said:

OK, I have modified the model to produce ones 3mm wider that will fit my SIDE 2 cartridge, and I hope all of the other cartridges that people have. As before there are 4 files for one with the logo on both sides, on the left, on the right and no logo. If anyone wants any further mods please ask

 

Atari Catridge Stand 2 Wide Right.stl 62.88 kB · 8 downloads Atari Catridge Stand 2 Wide.stl 103.5 kB · 6 downloads Atari Catridge Stand 2 Wide Left.stl 62.29 kB · 6 downloads Atari Catridge Stand 2 Wide Center.stl 21.66 kB · 7 downloads

Thanks. I should have checked the slicer before printing, as there is an issue:

 

The left wall is thicker than the right one (looking from the front). Turned out for me, that on the right side the logo and letters are "flying". Kind of worked anyway, but I think, you could improve the model.

 

The wider carts now fit.

 

The letters on the right have no contact to the wall (surprisingly it printed them anyway, but they fall apart easily:

 

Left side is ok, ignore the line at the bottom, I had a clogging nozzle, to which I reacted too late. Just paused printing, unloaded and reloaded filament and then resumed:

 

Left and right side in PrusaSlicer: Left is ok, but right is too small and has no contact to logo and letter:

 

But thanks for the wider slots, as I have dozens and dozens of carts, I will use this one anyway.

[Mr Robot]

1 hour ago, Gunstar said:

Maybe a better answer is a spool somewhere in-between those two positions.

The problem is the extruder moves up and down with the print so the "somewhere in-between" moves with the printout

[Gunstar]

49 minutes ago, Mr Robot said:

The problem is the extruder moves up and down with the print so the "somewhere in-between" moves with the printout

I imagined that would be the case, but figured that's true with any side mount, I imagine that's why the manufacturers default it top mount. Obviously I'll be sticking with the original spool configuration when mine arrived, until I get oriented with it. Then I may try other ways if I feel it necessary as others have.

[Doug_in_NC]

OK, I will have a look at it as soon as I can. Not quite sure what went wrong.

[Doug_in_NC]

OK, I found the error on the logo on the right side - it started where it should have stopped, so there was a logo deep gap between the wall of the case and the logo. I have updated the two files that are impacted - the one with the logo on both sides, and the one with it on the right. Hopefully we now have a full set of four designs that all work and all fit the larger cartridges. For completion I have included the other two files here too so they are easy to find.

Atari Catridge Stand 2 Wide_Revised.stl Atari Catridge Stand 2 Wide Right_Revised.stl Atari Catridge Stand 2 Wide Left.stl Atari Catridge Stand 2 Wide Center.stl

[Gunstar]

My Ender3 printer arrived today. I laid the parts all out and checked off the list. Everything is here except it says there should be 10 zip-ties and they only gave me 5! Should I return it?

 

The two spools of PLA filament that I ordered separately managed to arrive today too, so I'm not stuck with just the "sample" PLA filament that came with the printer, thank God, as I don't think there's enough there to print much.? On the other hand, I had no idea how large the spools would be! I was expecting much smaller spools!?

 

Anyway, I'm going to be spending the afternoon assembling and learning/testing it.

 

 

 

 

 

[Doug_in_NC]

Probably a bit late to say it, but if you haven’t worked on it yet, have a look at some of the how-to-assemble videos on YouTube. I found it helped when building mine. 

[Gunstar]

20 minutes ago, Doug_in_NC said:

Probably a bit late to say it, but if you haven’t worked on it yet, have a look at some of the how-to-assemble videos on YouTube. I found it helped when building mine. 

I was able to figure it out on my own, in spite of very spartan set-up guide with some bad English that made it a bit hard to understand. It's been finished for a couple of hours. It took me quite a while to get it leveled properly though. I'm taking a break before I start test-printing and setting up the Cura software on my PC. I am very happy with the build quality of this printer, It's mostly steel and aluminum with a very few small plastic pieces, a solid machine. Hopefully it prints as well as it seems to be made.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by Gunstar

[+skr]

I don´t know that particular printer, but if it makes as much noise as mine, I recommend printing noise dampers. Did this for my Prusa and the difference is unbelieveable. My printer is on an IKEA Lack table and created lots of noise and vibration, but when I put the dampers on, I had to check the printer every minute, because I thought it stopped worked. But actually it just became very quiet.

 

I used those, which are very simple and fast to print: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2773885

[Gunstar]

On 1/8/2021 at 6:43 AM, Mr Robot said:

From the pic it looks like a mashup, reversed mobo, magnetic bed, 40x40Y, no idea if the PSU is a meanwell.

 

What I'd call "essential" Ender 3 upgrades...

• Metal (or dual gear) Extruder (standard plastic one cracks really quick)
• Glass Bed (the genuine one has a nice grippy texture to it as well)
• BLTouch ABL (genuine, I had endless grief with a knockoff one)
• Solid bed mounts (with the BLTouch, these mean you *never need to adjust your bed level again)

 

*Never = every maintenance cycle

 

What I'd call "essential" things to print. 

• Decent cooling duct (Stock cooler is poop, this is the one I use, there are many others)
• Z-axis shim (If sainsmart has the same issue as Creality)
• Side mount spool (stop wearing out your extruder, make the printer more stable)

 

 

Now that I have the printer and it's set up, I can tell you that the Z-axis does not need to be shimmed. The mount is a perfect square bend and everything is in perfect alignment. The rest I'll have to see how they work, but the bed seems to be pretty good and has a grippy texture to it, but only use will tell how good it is. I'll definitely get the BLtouch and solid bed mounts. It is a plastic extruder, so I'll probably get a metal one. The cooling duct seems to be a well built one, it's a metal box, not plastic, but only use will tell how well it works. As to the side mount spool, I think I'll make the filament roller guide that @toddtmw linked too first, as due to where I have my printer and the space I have for it, I'd rather not have a side mount one if it can be helped. I like it up top. Also, @skr suggested some noise dampeners, but after doing a test print to confirm proper build leveling and proper nozzle height, that it's a pretty quite printer, no noise dampeners required as far as I'm concerned.

 

The only plastic parts on this printer are the front cover for the Y-axis pressure/contact switch, the side mount plate for the X-Axis pressure/contact switch, the extruder and the build level dials. Everything else is made of metal. If this is a knock off the the Creality Ender 3 pro, it's a quality built knock off.

Edited January 19, 2021 by Gunstar

[ivop]

9 hours ago, skr said:

My printer is on an IKEA Lack table and created lots of noise and vibration

I had the same issue years ago. I moved the printer to a table that is not hollow Lack tables work like a resonance box.

[Mr Robot]

I didn't like the way the Atari logo was squashed so I imported them to change that but the right logo on all the models didn't import correctly so I just remade everything. 

 

I've redone the extra 3mm width version and done double width 8cart versions as well. Logos on the left/right/neither/both sides for each model.

 

Edited January 20, 2021 by Mr Robot
Removed incorrect models